


Fire in His Eyes

by TheHuxler



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War of the Ring, Pre-Slash, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHuxler/pseuds/TheHuxler
Summary: "Faramir would see things often, in the edges of rooms where he dared not look. He would hear sounds, like the grinding of steel and bone, the hitch of breath and drip of wet. It happened first in the days since he had been released from the healing house, when he was tired, when the work piled up in seemingly endless stacks on his desk and the nights stretched on till morning. Nights when candles burned low and dribbled wax across his desk. But now, weeks since his release, it happened more often, when darkness filled his heart like a cool blanket and he felt himself preoccupied with things that existed no longer."Faramir struggles after the war. Aragorn helps. Pre-slash if you squint.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel & Faramir (Son of Denethor II), Aragorn | Estel/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	Fire in His Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfiction in years, a short little thing I wrote after watching the movies again over the break. Warnings for PTSD flashbacks and some mild descriptions of violence. Could be read as pre-slash. Please forgive any lore errors or inconsistencies.

Faramir would see things often, in the edges of rooms where he dared not look. He would hear sounds, like the grinding of steel and bone, the hitch of breath and drip of wet. It happened first in the days since he had been released from the healing house, when he was tired, when the work piled up in seemingly endless stacks on his desk and the nights stretched on till morning. Nights when candles burned low and dribbled wax across his desk. But now, weeks since his release, it happened more often, when darkness filled his heart like a cool blanket and he felt himself preoccupied with things that existed no longer. 

It was not such a large matter, Faramir told himself. He could still finish his paperwork, white-knuckled against his quill until it snapped, and he would have to go in search of a new one. Other times, he would smell roasting meats and have to excuse himself lest his stomach rebelled. 

It was a shameful thing, to be so preoccupied when others had died. Faramir had lived! Had survived the war where his family, his men, had not. The fighting was over and yet it's dark reach still remained. Faramir had spent all of his adult life on the battlefield. And now, it would not let him go. 

He dipped his quill once more and leaned further over his papers, fisting one hand into his hair and tugging. Ink dripped in splotches onto the parchment, soaked there through the layers beneath it, and Faramir's eyes drifted to it. The words on the page blurred, and he rubbed hard at his eyes, his mind sluggish and slowed. It was early afternoon yet he felt as though he had worked into the late hours, when thoughts ran together as to be indistinguishable. His mind drifted to waterfalls and forests, where the early morning dew hung, suspended, in the silent moments before battle.  
He tugged at his hair. Aragorn would need this report before tomorrow. 

He dipped his quill again, copied three figures from another document, and sorted through the papers, looking for the other figures he needed. Denethor would have finished this by now. Boromir too. They had, both of them, the experience needed to find their way around such documents, though the latter had always hated them. Faramir was familiar with books, with stories and histories, but these documents were another matter—his father had not thought Faramir would ever need to be familiar with them.

The documents did not say what they meant; they hid things beneath layers of parlance, and none of them were where they should be. Archives, libraries, his father's study. Faramir groaned in frustration and he threw the papers back down on the desk, standing so suddenly his chair tilted back against the floor and clattered there, hollow on the stone. 

He pinched the skin on the back of his hands till they bleed as he heard splintering wood in the corners of the room, smelled burning flesh and leather. 

“I'm alright,” he whispered. “I'm alive.”

He shuffled the documents back together and tucked them under one arm, combed his hair with the other and tugged his tunic straight. He would go to the library, and search there once more. 

—-

Faramir had not slept in days, really. He had dozed often at his desk, and awoken shaking with nightmares and visions. But he did not sleep. And he did not eat anything more than a few raw vegetables here and there. He couldn't stomach anything else. 

He sat in a patch of sunlight, on a thick sill in the hallway, papers spread before him. A tapestry hanging on the wall blocked him from view as he scribbled. He and Boromir would hide here often as children—before war had pulled them apart—gutted their family out to nothing. Faramir would give anything to be there again. For the war to be raging, but for Boromir to be alive. He was sick with it, as he remembered the bodies piled as they had been in Osgiliath, the graves they had dug in Ithilien, the bodies hidden away so that orc nor man could spot them. The guilt of it, to wish it all again if he could see his brother. 

He pinched his skin again, and bent low over his papers, forcing himself to focus even as he could feel his heart pounding, could see that blood running, those bodies writhing, at the corners of his eyes. His breath hitched as his eyes drifted towards one overlong, his nails clenching in his palms. 

Aragorn worried for him, he knew. The sides of Aragorn’s eyes crinkling, his brow drawing together whenever Faramir was in the room, when Faramir begged off meals, disappearing instead to his study. But Faramir would be fine, could still work, thought it took him longer than it had before. The king should not worry.

When Faramir stood, the room titled, and he stumbled, catching himself against the rough stones as his ears buzzed, scraping his chin against the stones. He leaned his head against the rock, cool, and took three deep breaths. It was not such a long walk to Aragorn’s study if he took but a moment to catch his breath, for the dizziness to subside. 

He gathered his reports slowly then, and walked even slower, his steps echoing down the stone hall. He remembered walking here, mud-covered and exhausted, to give reports to his father after night rides from Ithilien. That was over now. It would never be so again. 

Aragorn answered the door with a soft smile when Faramir knocked and ushered him to the small settee before the fire. 

"Would you like anything to eat?" Aragorn asked, though he did not wait for Faramir to answer, settling a small plate of fruits before him. Faramir nodded his thanks and picked at them slowly, gaze drifting towards the window. It would be rude not to eat them, though his stomach clenched as he chewed, his eyes burning with exhaustion.

"I hope you have not been working overmuch?" Aragorn asked as he settled across from him, shuffling through his own stack of papers. Aragorn gazed at him carefully, the one gazed at a frightened animal. Faramir knew he looked dreadful, his eyes darkened and bruised, lips pale and chapped. He was not comfortable around Aragorn, the way one was not comfortable around their superior, when they knew they were wanting. He wanted to be better, needed to be better, the kind of steward Aragorn deserved. Not an old soldier, caught on the edges of things which had once been.  
He nodded as he chewed slowly, forcing himself to swallow. 

"I have here the troop allocation for the lower circle," he said, as his finger trembled at the edges of the papers. Aragorn frowned at him. 

"We should be able to divert a large portion of them to help rebuild, Faramir continues. “Many were not simply career soldiers, and have experience where it might be useful".  
Aragorn nodded at home slowly, studying his face, his eyes catching at the scrape on his chin. 

"Faramir," he said softly, standing, “you're bleeding."

Faramir started, felt at his face, the sting there, his fingers coming away red. 

"Oh. I'm sorry," he said. Aragorn frowned at him, coming to sit beside him on the couch. When he touched Faramir's chin, dabbing at it carefully, Faramir looked away. 

"I stumbled in the hallways earlier and bumped against the stone". He said and attempted to slide further down the couch, to set space between them, though Aragorn's hand on his shoulder stopped him.  
"Why did you stumble?" Aragorn asked, and Faramir gazed out the window, searching for an answer, palms sweaty and heart beating in his ears. He could hear, even now, the clamor of them, steel against steel, the smell of the study's fire cloying in his nostrils, choking.

"There is a shadow of darkness, hanging over you often," Aragorn continued, and Faramir darted his eyes back to him, Aragorn’s eyes—cool and grey, the reflection of the fire there—and he was caught, caged by the licking of the flames. 

"I would help you if you would let me". Aragorn said, his eyes softening, the fires there, widening and Faramir shot to his feet. His vision darkened and he stumbled, dizzy. Aragorn wrapped his arms around him and guided him back to the couch as Faramir struggled weakly. Always Aragorn had been kind to him, offered his friendship, his help in matters of state, invited him to meals and for wine, but Faramir felt a gap between them that had not been there before—in the houses of healing. Faramir was a steward now. Faramir had duties he could not fulfill, sleep he could not find. He felt his shame within him like a growing thing, reaching out and filling him out to the edges of his bones every time he glimpsed a now-empty hall. It was there, a scattering of unfinished paperwork, the abandoned desk of his father’s rooms. Faramir was not something which Aragorn needed, was not something he could have wanted. Faramir should not have lived on while Boromir did not, while his father did not. When so many others lay in shallow graves in the woods of Ithilien, in piles on the Pelennor fields. His breath left him all at once as he slumped down to the couch, burying his pounding head in his hands.

"Easy now," Aragorn said, "sit here a moment, less you collapse, as I suspect you did earlier. When was the last time you ate?"

Faramir rubbed at his forehead, trembling.

"You really should not concern yourself with me," Faramir said, "it is not a problem any other should shoulder. It is of my own selfishness, my own preoccupation.”

"Should not friends help shoulder one anothers burdens? What friend would I be if I did not try to help?" Aragorn asked, kneeling before him, guiding Faramir's hands down from his face. Aragorn’s fingers caught at the gouges there in Faramir's flesh and rubbed over them slowly. 

"Please, tell me what troubles you," Aragorn said. 

"I cannot eat" Faramir spoke at last, gazing around their joined hands to the carpet. "Everything tastes-" he shook his head, his breath catching unevenly. "It is as if the battle follows me, even now and I-"  
He stood abruptly once more, and Aragorn shot to his feet, hovering nervously as Faramir walked unsteadily to the window, leaning against the frame and gazing to the cascade of the city below. Perhaps, if he told Aragorn, he would be relieved of his position, to leave it to one more qualified. He knew in his heart that Aragorn was not such a man, for he looked at all with friendship, saw the good in their hearts, even when they did not deserve it. 

“It follows in the dark, at the edges of things,” Faramir continued after a long moment, not quite so breathless as he had been, “and I know it too well to be rid of it. It is all I know, and so long I have hated it, detested that we should be used so, but now that it is gone, I wonder if I can continue to exist without it. Even now, I hear it," his voice cracked, turning and meeting Aragorn's eyes. "The sounds of shattered shields, of metal, devouring metal and it haunts me yet- I would give anything to be back there. To the battlefields in Ithilien, with my men, when all of us still drew breath, when Boromir-” his breath caught as he bowed his head once more. He heard the pad of Aragorn's feet on the carpet behind him, felt his hand, warm on his shoulder through the thin brocade of his tunic, turning him from the window and back to those eyes. They burned no longer but caught instead at the blue of the sky, the wispy clouds that moved there, so dilute that he felt he could reach out and dispel them all together, could exhale and see them gone. 

“War is not any one thing”, said Aragorn, as he squeezed at his shoulder. “It is something terrible as you have said, but it also marks the years of your life until now. The bonds you have forged, the evil you stood against. Your family. You can hate the war, Faramir, and still grieve for those you have lost. For the times you have lost.”

“Perhaps it is as you say,” Faramir said, “but still I feel its guilt, weighing on me”.

“How long have you been hearing these things? How long has this darkness troubled you? I did not sense it in the houses of healing, or I would have helped you.”  
Faramir shook his head. 

“No it was-it started after they released me, when sleep came not so easily, when battlefields had to be inspected, the dead buried.” He stopped and rubbed again at his forehead, pacing to the fire and, once he realized what he had done, retreated quickly back. Aragorn watched him carefully from the window, waiting.

“The halls of my father, empty,” Faramir said, voice low and quiet. 

“Battle often leaves scars we cannot see, that become apparent when the mind has the luxury of wandering,” Aragorn said. “You have lost much Faramir, and it is not wrong to grieve. But you need not do so alone.” Aragorn grabbed his shoulder once more, led him back to the couch. He laid Faramir back until he was stretched across the cushions. Faramir did not resist, even as Aragorn laid his hand upon Faramir’s brow, and when Faramir looked up he saw himself reflected there in his king's eyes, and in his own eyes he saw the eyes of Boromir, of his father, and all of the line that had come before him. He did not feel as alone as he had, as Aragorn smiled down at him, not sadly but tenderly, with the warmth he had seen when he had first opened his eyes after that terrible battle, in the houses of healing. 

“I shall be here when you wake. Sleep dreamlessly, mellon nîn”, Aragorn whispered, and Faramir did.


End file.
